Donald Trump’s remarks on the Gaza Strip after his February 4 meeting with Israeli Prime Minster Bibi Netanyahu precipitated enormous controversy and confusion.  They were not idle musings, but written in advance.  Typically, Trump wandered off-script, speculating about using US military force in Gaza, which White House handlers walked back the next day.  Trump himself then promptly walked back the walk-back, insisting he was serious about American control of Gaza, although without force.  (For the record, I have never advocated deploying the US military in Gaza.)

The ensuing furor has obscured the reality that Trump addressed two vastly different issues.  First, and most bizarrely, he asserted that Israel would hand control of Gaza to the US, which would “own” it, and make it “the Riviera of the Middle East.”  Second, and far more important, was Trump’s contention that resettling Gaza’s population in the Strip was the wrong way forward, at least near-term.  This distinction is critical to evaluating Trump’s statements, until changes positions again, perhaps while you read this article.

Trump’s first idea is not going to happen.  It springs from no underlying philosophy, national-security grand strategy, or consistent forward-looking policy.  It derives instead from his first-term pitch to North Korean leader Kim Jung Un that his country’s untouched beaches could become major resort areas.  That did not materialize, but the dream never died.

Wild as it was for North Korea, it is even more so in Gaza.  The aphorism “capital is a coward” is directly applicable.  Because of the ongoing cease-fire/hostage exchange, Hamas is reasserting control in Gaza, suggesting it may not be as debilitated by Israeli military action as initially thought.  In turn, that means Israel will likely resume hostilities, rightly so, when the exchanges end.  Until Gaza is fully secure, capital and labor necessary to build the Middle East’s Riviera, will be few and far between.  “Gaza” itself is an historical accident, reflecting military reality at the end of the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948, simply a part of the ancient Mediterranean path leading to Egypt.  Standing alone, it is not economically viable as far as the eye can see. 

Trump’s second suggestion about Gaza’s future is not new, having emanated from multiple sources long before his February 4 comments.  If adopted, it would fundamentally, permanently alter the Middle East.  Among other things, it would be the final death knell for the “two-state” solution.  Well before Hamas’s barbaric October 7 attack, the two-state solution had become simply an incantation.  Afterwards, in Israel, it all but disappeared as a serious proposition.  Nonetheless, absent any serious effort to create an alternative, the mantra has remained the default position. 

Those days are over.  The fundamental problem with the putative Palestinian “state” was its artificiality, a legacy of radical Arab leaders like Egypt’s Gamal Abdul Nassar;  its lack of any economic basis;  and its susceptibility to terrorist control.  Nonetheless, if the two-state concept is dead, we must find an alternative.  I once proposed a “three-state” solution:  returning Gaza to Egypt, with Israel and Jordan dividing sovereignty over the West Bank.  This approach would safeguard Israeli security while also settling Palestinians in viable economies, with real futures.  

Palestinians, however, have for decades been so abused by the region’s radical, post-colonial ideologies that neither Cairo nor Amman welcomed having potentially subversive populations come under their jurisdictions.  But the palpable difficulty of resolving the Palestinian issue should not lead regional states and concerned outside powers to fall back to reconstructing high-rise refugee camps in Gaza.  So doing, involving enormous costs in clearing the rubble and unexploded ordnance, not to mention eliminating the Hamas tunnel network, and then reconstruction itself, would inevitably lead to another October 7.  That is obviously unacceptable.

There is an alternative, however, namely changing the way Palestinians have been treated for over seven decades.  UNRWA, the UN’s Palestine relief agency, which is functionally an arm of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, should be abolished, and responsibility for Palestinian refugees transferred to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.  In turn, UNHCR should follow its basic humanitarian doctrine, under which refugees are either repatriated to their country of origin, or, if that is not possible, resettled in other countries.  There is nothing forcible about UNHCR resettlement, since both refugees and recipient countries must agree.  But it is also true that, unlike UNRWA, UNHCR refugee camps do not last forever.

This is not to the detriment of Palestinians.  Exactly the opposite.  It means they will receive the same humanitarian treatment as every other refugee population since World War II.  As difficult as switching to the UNHCR model may be, Trump’s comments, the first such by a major world leader, may finally ignite the debate that must occur to find a lasting home for the Gaza Palestinians.

This article was first published in the Daily Telegraph on February 10, 2025. Click here to read the original article.

Donald Trump’s election as President guarantees that America’s Middle East policy will change.  The real question, though, and a major early test for Trump, is whether it will change enough.  Does he understand that the region’s geopolitics differ dramatically from when he left office, and could change even more before Inauguration Day?  The early signs are not promising that Trump grasps either the new strategic opportunities or threats Washington and its allies face.

The region’s central crisis on January 20 will be Iran’s ongoing “ring of fire” strategy against Israel.  Right now, Israel is systematically dismantling Hamas’s political leadership, military capabilities, and underground Gaza fortress.  Israel is similarly dismembering Hezbollah in Lebanon:  its leadership annihilated, its enormous missile arsenal steadily decimated, and its hiding places shattered.  Israel will continue degrading Hamas, Hezbollah, and West Bank terrorists, ultimately eliminating these pillars of Iranian power.  Even President Biden’s team has already urged Qatar to expel Hamas’s leaders(https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/08/politics/qatar-hamas-doha-us-request/index.html).

Unfortunately, Yemen’s Houthis, still blocking the Suez Canal-Red Sea passage, have suffered only limited damage, as have Iran’s Shia militia proxies in Syria and Iraq.  Iran itself finally faced measurable retaliation on October 26, as Israel eliminated the Russian-supplied S-300 air defenses and inflicted substantial damage on missile-production facilities.  Nonetheless, Iran’s direct losses remain minimal.  Due to intense White House pressure and the impending US elections, Jerusalem targeted neither Tehran’s nuclear-weapons program nor its oil infrastructure.

Whether Israel takes further significant action before January 20 is the biggest unknown variable.  Israel’s October 26 air strikes have prompted unceasing boasting from Tehran that it will retaliate in turn.  These boasts remain unfulfilled.  The ayatollahs appear so fearful of Israel’s military capabilities that they hope the world’s attentions drift away as Iran backs down in the face of Israel’s threat.  If, however, Iran does summon the will to retaliate, it is nearly certain this time that Israel’s counterstrike will be devastating, especially if during the US presidential transition.  Israeli Defense Forces could lay waste to Iran’s nuclear-weapons and ballistic-missile programs so extensively they rock the foundations of the ayatollahs’ regime.

Washington’s conventional wisdom is that Trump will return to “maximum pressure” economically against Iran through more and better-enforced sanctions, and stronger, more consistent support for Israel, as during his first term.  If so, Tehran’s mullahs can relax.  Trump’s earlier “maximum pressure” policy was nothing of the sort.  Even worse, a Trump surrogate has already announced that the incoming administration will have “no interest in regime change in Iran(https://www.timesofisrael.com/ex-envoy-says-trump-aims-to-weaken-iran-deal-of-the-century-likely-back-on-table/),” implying that the fantasy still lives that Trump could reach a comprehensive deal with Tehran in his second term.

Moreover, despite the staged good will in Bibi Netanyahu’s call to Trump last week, their personal relationship is tense.  Trump said in 2021, “the first person that congratulated [Biden] was Bibi Netanyahu, the man that I did more for than any other person I dealt with.  Bibi could have stayed quiet. He has made a terrible mistake(https://www.axios.com/2021/12/10/trump-netanyahu-disloyalty-fuck-him).”  In practice, this means that Israel should not expect the level of Trump support it received previously.  And, because Trump is constitutionally barred from seeking a third term, he need not fear negative domestic political reactions if he opposes Israel on important issues.

Much depends on the currently unclear circumstances Trump will face on January 20.  In addition to shunning regime change, Trump seems mainly interested in simply ending the conflict promptly, apparently without regard to how(https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trumps-erratic-foreign-policy-meet-a-world-fire-2024-11-06/), which has proven very effective in US politics.  This approach is consistent with his position on Ukraine.  Asserting that neither conflict would have even occurred had he remained President, which is neither provable nor disprovable, Trump sees these wars as unwanted legacies from Biden.

If Israel does not demolish Iran’s nuclear aspirations before Trump’s inauguration, those aspirations will be the first and most pressing issue he faces.  If he simply defaults back to “maximum pressure” through sanctions, he is again merely postponing an ultimate reckoning with Iran.  Even restoring the sanctions to the levels prevailing when Trump left the Oval Office will be difficult, because Biden’s flawed and ineffective sanctions-enforcement efforts have weakened compliance globally.  Trump will not likely have the attention span or the resolve to toughen sanctions back to meaningful levels.  The growing cooperation among Russia, China and Iran means Iran’s partners will do all they can to break the West’s sanctions, as they are breaking the West’s Ukraine-related sanctions against Russia.

As they say in Texas, Trump is typically “all hat and no cattle”:  he talks tough but doesn’t follow through on his rhetoric.  Since he has never shown any inclination to move decisively against Iran’s nuclear program, that leaves the decision to Israel, which has its own complex domestic political problems to resolve.  An alternative is to assist Iran’s people to overthrow Tehran’s hated regime.  Here, too, however, Trump has shown little interest, thereby missing rare opportunities that Iran’s citizens could seize with a minimum of outside assistance.  If Tehran’s ayatollahs are smart, they will dangle endless opportunities for Trump to negotiate, hoping to distract him from more serious, permanent remedies to the threats the ayatollahs themselves are posing.

Of all the critical early tests Trump will face, the Middle East tops the list.  China, Russia, and other American adversaries will be watching just as closely as countries in the Middle East, since the ramifications of Trump’s decisions will be far-reaching.

This article was first published in The Independent Arabie on November 10, 2024. Click here to read the original article.